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- Herausgeber: Carcanet Poetry
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
Shortlisted for the PEN Heaney Prize 2025 The Banquet explores the fragile, intricate links between language and longing — how words can reconstruct great cities out of memories and dreams, tear them apart, or carry them from one place to another, as if each city, house and chamber were made of sonic and visual images rather than walls and bricks. Moving between the worlds of philosophy, theatre and poetry — from Dante's Florence to Wittgenstein's Cambridge; from Tom Stoppard's theatre stage to the harsh landscapes of Rimbaud's poetry — The Banquet explores the ever-growing tensions between words and action, knowledge and ethics.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Contents
67
For my children 8
9
…you have found a new conception. As if you had invented a new way of painting; or, again, a new metre, or a new kind of song.
—Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §40110
The Citadel of the Mind
The Letter
Think of it as an installation—
on a glass table, a ceramic-blue
plate—an invitation—
margarita on ice, a hand reaching
for an orange segment, perhaps
it is summer, the changing
of weather. Perhaps you’ve just
got off the train. The sky like a boy playing
with sunset—you don’t know
how it happened, you don’t have to
explain. The street is a sunflower
field. The sea, an ongoing
question. Some things
are like this—the traffic, the trees—
an aesthetic dispute—an oscillation—
and far off—the forest
of uneven streets—a karaoke bar
pulsing heat and night
weather. How the light
takes hold of the traffic, the river’s dark
floor. How the dark travels
upwards—the coal-silver stars
like a far-off vacation, the inconsistency
of a moon crescent—you know14
how it works—it’s midsummer, the distance
of stars moving further, the rain
coming in
like a fine stage-direction. Think of it
as a study in pain against
language—the river, the trees—
there’s always a thought moving
closer, an unscheduled thunder, a storm
in a picture you’re still holding
close. I have to admit—I didn’t expect
to see you this early, carrying
a letter—the same one
you tore into pieces years and countries
ago. I think what happened
is this—
you must have managed
to go back in time. Time? Think of it
as a provocation—
a yellow leaf caught in blue-bicycle
weather, a train testing distance
with an inaccurate
question, an equation of words against
speed. It’s been raining all day but look—
you have managed to draw your way15
here. There are so many windows
in the towering building over the bridge
but only one window
is lit with waves of blue and dark
green. Think of it as a repetition—
on the seventh floor
a woman is watching the same film
she’s never able to watch. Some things
are too close, and how often
they move even closer
in films. But this evening, as the rain
plays with darkness across the landscape
of streets, she’s leaning against
the half-open window, running a thought
at full speed. The moon—
a recurring wrong
question. The street, a loose
string. Perhaps you’ve been running for days
in this weather. Perhaps you’ve just
got off the train. And yes,
there was never
a letter, only a chamber—the movement
of words against words. You don’t have
to explain. Some letters16
open and close
like an unwritten rumour
but they matter, they matter. How else
would you walk in this wide field
of thought—the moon as the trace
of a hot-air balloon, the night—a train
station. You don’t know
how it happens. You don’t know
how it happens.
Field Study
That year, I wanted to know
everything—the word and the matter, the sky
taking off at the edge of the sea, the bell
ringing and ringing in a locked-summer
castle, the city aching
under the burden
of snow—the moon carried
by water like an unsettled
vow—knowing the direction
would not grant protection—I knew
that—I wanted to know
the night gathering speed like a heightened
emotion, the kingfisher
river, the blue-scaffolding forest
leading towards the streets wrestling
with warmth—knowing
the city would not clear my pain—I knew
that—I wanted to know
the smoke and the rainstorm, the girl
on the opposite balcony—18
the way she was studying
a tangerine segment
under the ringing-blue light
of a brass microscope—I wanted to study
the air when it rained and just after
it settled, the room opened to light, all
the ways to say heart without
meaning mind, the harbour
testing out waves and new water, the moon
turning into a fictional landscape—all
year I think I was trying
to write you a letter—something
to do with the city holding onto the night
like a call for attention,
something to do with the premise
of youth as aesthetic escape or a visual
contract—I liked that, I’m not sure
I knew what it meant—perhaps
that I kept losing things—not ideas
but things—real, absolute things—those
that mattered—the rain
in a picture I was trying to hold, the distance19
it took for a call to reach
somewhere. The smoke as a shield
against warmth. All year
I was sick—sick of knowing
so little. Sick of longing. Knowing
the direction would not bring
you back—there was nothing I didn’t know
about that, and I had to know
everything—everything
else—there was so little to lose
when the city offered that much
to learn—how I wanted
to believe in that—
how I wished I could trust my whole
heart in the high castles of dark—
in the great, volatile cities of knowledge.
Memory and Geography
There’s a point at the edge of the field
in a book I’m reading where a river I thought was missing
turns into a film: a case of absence flowering
action—a yellow bicycle on a metallic-blue bridge—
something like this—a bluish pink feather, the unsettled
green in a silver-dark sea, and in a different
country, I mean—chapter, the irregularity
of autumn fields, the beauty of snow or of things
when repeated. Maybe there’s an algorithm
creating a sunset—each page, a split-second
later, a lake getting fuller and fuller, a room I’m trying
to fit myself in. Surely there’s an argument
to be made against sunsets—how inadequate
they are, how assured and self-indulgent—a recurring
intervention in the memory of streets. Consider the rain
as two opposite lands—two possible soundtracks
for a sleepless, long week—the principle
of uncertainty—the certitude of clarity—something
in between. Outside, the city is rising in circular
movement like a fast-flying machine. You see, here’s a thing
I never understand—it’s only when I’m running
that time seems to happen at the right pace. Could you
help with that? The city is moving—the river, the buildings,
cyclists, junctions, newspapers, lampposts, some21
bridges, train stations, trees. Today, for example,
it’s snowing—a film crew is shooting a scene
at the end of the street. It must be the seaside, midsummer—
a girl with heavy sunglasses holding onto a blue parasol
as if it were a quick helium balloon. On the news, a storm
is given a name—the sea is hysterical, the sky pulsing
cerulean and pink like a feast. I know what you’d say—
we’re part of this scenery, no matter how irrational
the weather is. There’s so much noise but the music
is real. There are so many songs. How beautiful
the sky tonight, how frightening and real—we could almost
turn it into a film. The past as a mathematical object—
would you agree? A system of clear
borders, patterns and doors that keep sliding forwards
and backwards towards the long list of credits and names
at the end of a film—the edge of a field
in a book I’m reading where a river I thought missing
turns into a bicycle wheel, a yellow feather, a scene in the snow
in the height of summer just when the camera
moves in. Somewhere, a girl wrestles with an upturned
umbrella as if it were a rebelling idea or the unstable heart
of an open-air thought. Somewhere it’s always
snowing and always midsummer. I don’t know
how it works. The sunsets go backwards and forwards22
like unsettled clocks. As for the irregularity
of buildings, streets, rivers—as for the nights burning
their full-hearted bridges—how they glow and withdraw
into the next movement of words—maybe there’s an algorithm
that could measure the distance between absence
and action—the precarious point
when the night turns into a spiralling road—the moon
beaming disorder like a heady cocktail, the news
naming more stories, more cities and storms, and far off—
on an unlikely cliff or a snowy mountain overlooking
the nest of a silver-moon lake—the city, protective
and real—an exaltation of words. Is this how a story
begins—with the inconclusiveness of loss? There’s a country
I took for a landscape I wanted to restructure and change, at least
in a film—a story I wanted to breathe
from the start, call it memory, call it geography, call it
the vast landscape of childhood or night—a thing
disappearing—a country turning into a map.
The Citadel of the Mind
First you were an idea, a blue satellite
orbiting a distant, dark
moon. Then you were a feather, the light
distance it takes for beauty
to form into something like finding
the ground. It didn’t happen
without warning, the morning
glowed like a feverish neon sign—an indication
of clemency—I thought, the sky
turned sapphire and dark like new foreign
fire—a transposition
from fear to loss—how wrong
I was. How wrong
was the weather, raining and raining
without pause. I’ve always thought
there was one primary source—
not light or fire but the small
movement from sound
into a word. The leaping fish
was glowing from blue to bright turquoise24
when moving upstream
or was it a song I was trying
to catch—a foreign soundscape
floating above the wide-open highway
when heading back home? First
you were an idea. Then, an idea
with wings—the purpose of flying
or shifting the weight between travel
and dream. Today, I’m reading
that the Vita Nuova tells of dream visions
and feverish hallucinations. It’s late
afternoon, the shortest
day of the year. There are so many ways
to lock oneself out of a castle, out of a word
